In astudy conducted by the Department of Health & Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, results of criminal background investigations revealed that human health agencies (HHAs) were still employing criminals. Several of the employees were found to have convictions for crimes against people, which should have disqualified them from employment in the HHAs. Based on this information alone, it is safe to say that ournursing home patients are being failed.

Indiana Nursing Home Issues

Indiana has been regarded as one of the worst states for nursing home care. The U.S. Government Accountability Officereported in 2009 that Indiana’s nursing homes performed more inadequately than any other state in the country. Indiana nursing home employees have been in the news for recent incidents that indicate the problem has not yet improved.

Recent Indiana Nursing Home Abuse Incidents

In one of the more sadistic incidents, anursing home employee at the Aperion Care Arbors of Michigan City shared a video on snapchat of an elderly dementia patient taking a shower. Inappropriate postings of nursing home patients on social media is a form of sexual exploitation and even voyeurism. An employee at Woodland Hills Care Center in Lawrenceburg was charged with battery resulting in the death of an endangered adult after anautopsy proved the nursing home patient died of broken vertebra and a witness informed authorities the employee pulled the patient from a walker violently.

It may not seem as serious a crime as sexual or physical abuse and neglect of the elderly, but cases of stealing patients financial information, personal property, and even medications has also been on the rise. Greenfield and Indianapolis police departments found themselves in the middle of an extensive identity theft ringinvestigation which focused on the Golden Living Nursing Home in Greenfield. While this is one of the larger identity theft cases involving elderly people, identity theft and financial abuse of elders has become more and more frequent lately.

No Laws Mandate Criminal Background Checks for Nursing Home Employees

People put their beloved family members in nursing homes and entrust the facilities will provide the best care for their loved ones. Currently, no national law exists to mandate how nursing homes should handle background checks of prospective employees, although it has been a topic of discussion. At the state level, only 10 require FBI and state criminal background checks. How can they be offering the best – and safest – care for patients?

The truth is, Indiana nursing homes are not providing the best care they can for our beloved and vulnerable elderly. As you have probably realized, nursing home abuse and neglect has different patterns, but each time, a patient has been abused or neglected. We can all help by raising these issues with state legislators and spreading awareness to the public, as well as learning the warning signs of elder abuse and neglect.

If you suspect a loved one of yours has been subjected to nursing home abuse or neglect, theIndianapolis nursing home lawyers at Rowe & Hamilton, want to help you find justice. Contact us today to talk to a nursing home attorney today.

Car wrecks always create issues for the people involved, but as more parties are involved in the accident, the difficulties that will be encountered in determining who is liable for the damages will grow exponentially. In a collision between two vehicles, law enforcement and insurance companies can determine the cause of the accident fairly easily, but in much larger chain reaction accidents, such as the one thatoccurred on Valentine’s Day just outside of Greensburg, things will not be so simple.

The Valentine’s Day Crash

A vehicle traveling on Interstate 74 went out of control at the westbound 132 mile post at around 3:30 PM, likely due to the accumulation of about 2 inches of snow on the roadway over the course of the day. The vehicles traveling behind the car, some of them moving at speeds inappropriate for the road condition, were unable to stop, and somewhere between 20 and 30 cars eventually would be involved in the original collision or subsequent wrecks. By the time that authorities were able to get Interstate 74 safely shut down to traffic, it required five ambulances and law enforcement officers from the Decatur County Sheriff’s’ Department, Shelby County Sheriff’s Department and the Shelbyville Police department, several different local tow truck companies, and a crew from INDOT to clear the scene over the course of several hours. Thankfully, while a number of motorists were injured in the collision, no fatalities were reported.

Situations like the one on Interstate 74 happen with more frequency than anyone would like, and it should be obvious that if you are involved in a chain reaction vehicle collision like this it will be important to retain an attorney as soon as possible to represent your best interests in resolving the matter.

So Who Is at Fault?

Indiana CodeTitle 9, Article 21 sets out the laws pertaining to liability on the roadways, stating that our state uses what is called the 51 percent rule of modified comparative negligence. What this actually means is that if you are involved in a collision, and it is determined that you were 50 percent or less at fault for the accident you (or your insurance company if they have already compensated you for your damages) have the right to seek recovery for the damages you have suffered. Any damage award by a jury is reduced by your percentage of fault up to 50%. So if the jury awards you $100,000 and says you are 20% at fault, the jury award would be $80,000. If the jury says you are 51% at fault or higher, you receive nothing. Any possible percentage of fault is also used in the negotiation of your claim so this is why it is so important to have an attorney to get the full value for your personal injury.

How Does This Actually Work Out?

This is all well and good in theory, but what a driver who has been in a chain reaction collision really wants to know is how this works “on the ground,” and the answer to that question is why you need the effective and aggressive representation of Rowe & Hamilton, Attorneys at Law. In a multi-vehicle collision, especially ones involving numerous other cars, insurance companies for at-fault drivers have an enormous amount of liability exposure. Because of this, they will make every effort to shift as much of the liability for the accident on to other parties to reduce their payouts, and attempt to drag out the process of settling claims for as long as possible in the hopes of convincing damaged parties to take less than they are entitled to in compensation.

Contact Rowe & Hamilton, Attorneys at Law

In auto wrecks, especially ones that involve multiple vehicles, the case often hinges on which party has the best evidence, and to ensure that it will be you a person needs the most experienced legal team. Contact the experienced auto accident team at Rowe & Hamilton, Attorneys at Law today to discuss your potential case and learn how we can help you get the restitution you deserve.

In a lot of litigation stemming from car wrecks, the court’s final verdict on the matter will come down to which party had the best, most convincing evidence to support their version of events. And in a situation without uninvolved witnesses this can lead to outcomes that would have been different had one of the parties had the ability to present evidence that was not available. Enter the dash cam.

Development and Usage

Dash cams were originallypopularized in Russia, where, due to the high levels of insurance fraud and police corruption they are regularly utilized in close to one million vehicles. Their first entries into the United States market were with police departments and commercial vehicles, for very similar uses to the ones that popularized them in Russia and less developed parts of Asia: they could provide probative evidence in high value insurance fraud cases and disprove false allegations against police officers.

As the technology developed, and prices dropped dash cams have grown in popularity with the average driver as well, first among motorcyclists (who have to deal with negligent and in many cases intentional actions of other drivers putting them at risk on a far more frequent basis than any non-rider could realize) in the form of helmet cams like theGoPro, and later with the general motoring public. The current selection of dash cams run between $60 and $200, and are available with both front and rear facing lenses, low light or night vision capability, GPS tagging, motion activation sensors, and in some cases even the ability to stream data through cellular connections to off-site storage and websites.

Benefits of Dash Cams

In parts of Europe and some Asian countries, insurance companies offer discounted rates to clients who have their cars outfitted with dash cams, and while this has not become a trend in the United States yet, in all probability as dash cam video gains a longer track record of successful use in insurance litigation, we will probably see this option phased in here as well. However, even without an insurance incentive dash cams provide a number of potentialuseful services right now. In an insurance claim, and litigation arising from a car wreck, quality evidence is the key to successfully pursuing a case, and having a video recording of your car wreck can in many situations provide an insurance company with the incentive to settle a matter that they will eventually lose in court quickly.

Dash cams can also help to fight an insurance trick called “fault shaving,” a practice where an insurance company attempts to shift partial blame for an accident to other drivers to reduce the amount that they have to pay out to settle a claim. This can be particularly useful in multiple vehicle collisions in situations where a stopped car is rear ended and forced into the car in front of them. It is fairly common for insurance companies to claim in these cases that the middle vehicle actually hit the front one before it was rear ended, and thus is responsible for some or all of the cost of the front vehicle’s damages.

Additionally, dash cams with motion (impact) activation have been successfully used by drivers who have had their cars damaged by hit and run collisions in parking lots. It may be frustrating to you to find that your car was damaged while you were in a store shopping, but it will be a lot more frustrating for the person who hit your car when law enforcement informs them that your camera recorded their license plate while they were “getting away.”

Call Rowe & Hamilton, Attorneys at Law

If you or someone you know has been injured in a car wreck, Rowe & Hamilton, Attorneys at Law, is your clear choice for experienced Indianapolis, Indiana auto accident attorney. We encourage you to speak with a member of our staff today to learn your options and get started on the path to recovery.

One of the most potentially injurious kinds of auto accidents is a collision between a vehicle and a pedestrian. The combination of the weight and momentum of a car and the lack of protection that comes with being a pedestrian makes even a relatively low speed accident capable of causing serious and potentially lethal injuries to the people who are involved. Auto/pedestrian accidents usually end up getting a lot of media attention; there is an intrinsic horror involved with the possibility that causes the kind of morbid fascination that makes for good ratings. And with any high coverage story invariably comes with a tremendous amount of commentary and uninformed opinion. One major misunderstanding that this has propagated among the public at large is that when there has been an auto/pedestrian incident the driver of the vehicle is automatically at fault. While the assumption that if an incident of some sort happens it will somehow be completely “someone else’s” fault may be attractive to some, it has led many people to be less careful in their day to day lives than they should be.

Liability Generally

Everyone who uses public roads, sidewalks, and right-of-ways, drivers and pedestrians alike, are held to the same legal standard of care: they must act in the manner of a reasonably prudent person taking part in whatever activity they are participating in. The misconception that a driver of a vehicle will always be the party at fault in these sorts of accidents comes from an assumption that because a reasonably prudent driver must be more careful than a reasonably prudent pedestrian, it must mean that a pedestrian must lack fault. When thought about logically, this concept is farcical at best; it’s the equivalent of saying that because a person handling nuclear waste has to be more careful than a garbage man, the garbage man cannot cause damage if he is negligent.

The law requires pedestrians to obey any traffic laws that are pertinent to them in exactly the same way that someone driving a car does, and just like the driver if a pedestrian acts negligently they can be held accountable for damages that they cause.

A Pedestrian’s Liability

Pedestrians can be held liable by the courts if their negligent actions are the cause of a traffic collision. Additionally, in these situations, the driver of their car or their insurance company can attempt to recover for their damages by bringing suit against the pedestrian, the pedestrian’s estate if they are deceased, or against insurance companies underwriting certain types of policies that the pedestrian may hold.

Drivers who are attempting to recover compensation in situations such as this have to be aware of the potential ramifications of filing an insurance claim without discussing the matter with an attorney first. In most cases, when a person files an insurance claim they subrogate their rights to their insurance company. What that means is that they essentially sign over their rights to litigate a claim to their insurance providers, and will no longer be able to bring it themselves.

Insurance companies are usually resistant to bringing suits for recovery against pedestrians due to the societal perception of auto-pedestrian accidents. Thus if a driver believes that their insurance coverage will not fully cover their losses, or has a high deductible rate on their policy, they may be better off recovering through litigation instead of an insurance claim with their own providers.

When a train and a car get in a collision at a railroad crossing, it never ends well for the car. Trains on average weigh 3,200 tons, though depending on the freight being carried can be much heavier, and the average automobile weighs about two tons, though since this statistic includes large commercial vehicles as well, the average passenger car is often significantly lighter. It’s an undisputed fact that a train requires a significant distance to stop, usually over a mile from the point where the brakes are initially applied, and in addition they have no way to maneuver to avoid a collision. For this reason the first line of defense has been to equip the vast majority of urban track crossings with crossing gates, pavement markers, and systems of warning lights and bells. Despite the combination of safety devices and public knowledge, most collisions between a train and a car are reported as having been caused by the driver of the vehicle attempting to drive around the safety barricades and cross in front of the train to save the time it would take to wait for it to pass.

New Reports of Industry Misconduct

It is a common belief among the public that railroad crossing collisions must have been caused by the driver of the car making a bad decision; however recentlynumerous cases ofrailroad companiestampering with evidence about these collisions have been discovered. These reports have spanned several different major railroad transportation companies, and involve behaviors that are not only underhanded but completely illegal: the destruction or concealing of evidence that safety devices used at railroad crossings were negligently maintained, and that in some cases necessary repairs were deliberately ignored.

The reason for this is strictly financial. Due to the large distances and long times required for a train to come to a stop in even an emergency situation, railroad safety procedures are necessarily held to a very high standard of care: since the safety devices installed at railroad crossings are essentially the only thing that the railroad industry can do to prevent collisions with cars at these crossings their upkeep must be given the highest priority. Anything less is likely negligent. Because of this, a pattern of poor maintenance or other negligent behavior on the part of an individual railroad company or the industry as a whole would make it extremely difficult for railroad industry attorneys defending the companies in court in matters involving railroad crossing collisions to convincingly argue that an accident at a railroad crossing was more likely than not the fault of the driver of the car involved. A precedent like this could very quickly become financially disastrous to an industry that currently has the benefit of the doubt in these matters.

Shaky Statistics

According to Federal studies, 87 percent of collisions at railroad crossings are caused by “risky driver behavior or poor judgment.” What the studies do not immediately clarify is that their raw data largely comes from internal accident reports kept by the railroad companies themselves. These studies have led to a concentration on driver education programs such as the “Always Expect A Train!” media campaign. And while this campaign has been touted to have been responsible for about a 50 percent drop in deaths at railroad crossings since 1990, over the same time period tens of thousands of railroad track crossings have also been taken out of service, making the development of balanced statistics highly problematic.

Contact an Attorney

A collision at a railroad crossing can be caused by many factors that are not the fault of the driver of the automobile: obscured right of ways, broken warning equipment, or human error by the railroad engineer. If you have lost a loved one in a railroad crossing collision you may not have even considered that circumstances outside of their control may have been to blame. We encourage you to contact the skilled Indianapolis auto accident attorneysof Rowe & Hamilton, Attorneys at Law, today to discuss your potential case.

A pedestrian who washit by a car while trying to cross the road last week has passed away from her injuries after a brief hospital stay. Chantel Lynch of Windsor Locks was attempting to cross Ella Grasso Turnpike in a largely commercial area when she was struck by a car driven by Mohammed Ahsan, an Uber driver in route to Bradley International Airport with a passenger. Paramedics quickly performed CPR on Mrs. Lynch before transporting her to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, where she unfortunately passed away from her injuries shortly after arrival.

Uber’s Safety Record

While Uber has been in operation for a number of years at this point, safety data about their operation is still somewhat sketchy. Uber operates as an organized service for what is commonly referred to as “gypsy cabs”—unlicensed, unregulated, and in many areas illegal operations that avoid many of the safety requirements that are in place to protect consumers by operating through cell phones and the internet. The company itself does not claim to be any sort of transportation business, but rather claims that they merely provide a service that matches interested parties. Because of the nature of the service, hard statistical data is largely unavailable regarding the potential additional risks involved with using Uber as opposed to other forms of public transportation, but the uncompiled reports of issues with Uber drivers have beenpiling up quickly. While not as common as reports of assaults and sexual violence, Uber drivers across the country are involved in vehicle accidents on a disturbingly regular basis.

Causes

The root cause of the majority of the problems that occur involving Uber, and the similar ridesharing service Lyft, stem from the fact that their hiring practices do not require the same kind of substantial background and driving record checks that are needed before a person can become employed as a taxi driver or other similar occupations. Uber does not use fingerprints or law enforcement sources to run background checks on potential new hires, and because of this they fail to weed out employees who can and do pose a hazard to the public. It is very possible that Uber employs people with serious criminal records and who are simply unsafe drivers. And perhaps because of this, members of the general public, some of whom are simply motorists and have nothing to do with Uber itself, are involved in automobile accidents that never should have had a chance to happen in the first place.

Your Uber Litigation Attorneys

The insurance situation with Uber and its drivers is excessively convoluted and needlessly complex, and because of this, successfully recovering for damages when you have been in an accident with an Uber driver requires an attorney that has knowledge and experience specific to these matters. At Rowe and Hamilton Attorneys at Law, our top-notch legal team are skilled in helping people get the restitution they deserve when they are injured by ride share operators. If you or a loved one has been hurt by an Uber driver, you deserve to be made whole again. Contact one of our experienced Indianapolis auto accident attorneys today for a consultation.

When you are involved in a car accident that is not your fault, you expect the driver who caused it to be held liable for the damages they caused. In cases where the at-fault driver was operating a company vehicle or driving for business purposes, their employer may be equally responsible for the accident as well under two different legal theories. This can be particularly helpful for injured parties in cases where an employee in a company vehicle, or traveling for business purposes is not a viable candidate for collecting a judgment. In cases where a driver does not have many assets, the old saying “you can’t get blood from a stone” often becomes the deciding factor in whether an injured party is compensated or not – even if you are awarded a large judgment in court, if it is against a party that does not have the assets to make good on the award, you may still end up without the restitution that you are entitled to. A business will inevitably have far more liquid capital than any of their employees personally have access to, and by bringing them into the lawsuit as a party alongside their employee an injured party can help ensure they will actually be able to collect any damages that they are awarded by the courts.

Employer Negligence

When an employer negligently supervises an employee, or is negligent in their hiring process, they can be found negligent in their own right for the actions of their employees. Employers are required to do a certain amount of due diligence, such as checking a potential employee’s driving record and making sure that they have a valid driver’s license if that employee is going to be driving a company vehicle, or has job duties that involve traveling. Prudent companies usually will have their employees submit to drug and alcohol testing, and periodically spot-check employee driving records to be certain that they are aware of any incidents that happen after the employee is hired.

Employers are also expected to properly supervise employees while they are on the job. This includes making a reasonable effort to be sure that they obey all state and federal laws while operating a vehicle on company time, as well as establishing safety policies and procedures, and making sure that their employees obey them. As with negligent hiring practices, companies are required to act reasonably in how they manage their employees’ actions while they are on company time.

Vicarious Liability

There is a legal theory called vicarious liability that establishes that actions of an employee while at work are the same as the actions of their employer, since it is assumed that the employer has or should have control over the people whom they hire to conduct their business. This makes it possible to hold an employer liable for the actions of an employee who injures someone in an auto accident, even if the employer themselves did not have a part in the incident. In order for this to be applied, several criteria must be met:

The employee’s actions were done while they were at work;

The employee’s actions were within the scope of their job;

The employee was hired to do the work that they were doing at the time; and

The employer benefited from the work the employee was doing at the time the accident occurred.

Because of this, if an employee gets in an auto accident while running an errand for work the employer could be found liable for their actions, while if an employee has the same accident while running a personal errand the employer would not be.

Arecent accident on southbound interstate 69 outside of Huntington, which involved two semi-trucks and five cars had the highway shut down for several hours before road crews could get it cleared again. A southbound driver lost control of his vehicle, possibly due to inclement weather conditions, and crossed the median into oncoming traffic, where it struck a tractor trailer. The driver of the commercial vehicle, in turn, lost control and slid across the median himself, entering the southbound lane and causing a chain-reaction collision that involved another semi-truck and several cars. Thankfully only minor injuries were reported in the crash. Law enforcement sources report that the accident is thought to have been caused by the slick roadways combined with excessive speed.

Large Truck Wreck Injuries

While in this incident none of the people involved were seriously injured, unfortunately this is often not the case. Large trucks are involved in only a small percentage of traffic accidents, but these wrecks make up a disproportionate number of the serious injuries and fatalities that are reported every year. And it will come as no surprise that when people are injured or killed in a traffic collision involving a commercial truck, there is a high likelihood that the people who were killed or injured were in the smaller vehicle. Statistically, serious accidents with commercial vehicles will almost always occur during the daylight hours and in clear weather: not the kind of road conditions that most people would expect them to happen.

Paralysis

Injuries to the head, back, and spinal column are among the most serious injuries that happen to victims of a car accident. Spinal cord damage carries with it the risk of severe nerve damage and even paralysis, medical conditions which very often leave the people suffering from them with lifelong medical issues and extensive medical bills. Theaverage yearly expenses of a person suffering from a spinal cord injury is from $230,000 to over $775,000; over an average lifetime that can total more than $3 million dollars. Financial costs such as thiscan be ruinous to the victims and their families if they do not receive financial compensation from the trucking company involved.

Complex Legal Claims

Vehicular accidents that resulted in major injuries like head trauma and paralysis are complex to litigate, and require the skill set of a legal team with experience in these matters. Insurance companies are usually willing to settle quickly for the damage to the vehicles in these cases, but will often fight with great persistence to avoid or limit their liability for the personal injury aspects of the claim. Expenses incurred by a paralyzed driver are both extensive and open ended, so insurance carriers representing trucking companies often try to get the victims to agree to settlements (and the accompanying release agreements) quickly before the full extent of the victim’s injuries are assessed and they have had a chance to objectively consider the long term costs and other ramifications of their injuries. And by accepting less money than they will actually require to compensate for their injuries, the victims can end up simply running out of money later in life, resulting in debts that they may never be able to afford to pay.

Indianapolis Auto Accident Experts

If you or somebody you love has been injured in an accident involving a large truck or other commercial vehicle, it is important that you seek help from an attorney that has experience with both litigating against the insurance companies and anticipating your future needs. Contact the Indianapolis auto accident legal team at Rowe & Hamilton Attorneys at Law today to discuss your situation and learn about your options.

Three people were killed in a recent street racing accident in Indianapolis when a Trailblazer, which was not involved in the race, was hit by a Ford Mustang driven by 20-year old Conner Tomlinson. Thomlinson was racing an as of yet unidentified driver in a Chevrolet Corvette on South East Street near interstate 465, a long, straight stretch of road that witnesses report is popular with drag racers, when due to the slippery conditions he fishtailed his car, struck the median and crossed over into the oncoming lane where he hit the Trailblazer. The occupants of the SUV, Rebeca Rodriguez-Gomez, 52, her 12-year-old daughter Jasmine Alday-Rodriguez, and 59-year-old Rogelio Legorreta were all killed in the crash. With Tomlinson in the Mustang were three passengers, including a 10-year-old child, all of whom are reportedly listed as being in good condition. The Corvette, which was apparently not involved in the collision, fled the scene.

A Changing Scene

Street racing has existed for about as long as motor vehicles have been common, but recent pop culture phenomenons like the Fast And The Furious movie franchise and the Discovery Channel showStreet Outlaws has brought both attention and glamor to what used to be a very niche underground activity, and with this a rapid increase in street racing related accidents and fatalities. Technology has also played a part in this proliferation: with the availability of cellular phones and the internet what used to be primarily disorganized “pick-up” races stemming from random encounters is evolving into a much larger, semi-organized phenomenon that often brings other criminal activities like drugs and underage drinking with it.

Statistics

A study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System found that approximately 49 people out of every 1,000 who race will end up getting injured while pursuing the activity. And not surprisingly, most street racers are teenagers. Up until recently when street racing became a more organized activity, however, there has not been a tremendous amount of study put towards it; rather, various law enforcement groups have tended to treat instances as isolated events and thus not keep specific records aside from more all-encompassing traffic infraction and motor vehicle accident statistics.

Crack-Downs

Because of the proliferation of street racing, and a number of high-profile fatality accidents in recent years, both law enforcement and state legislatures across the country have been working to reign in some of these problems. What used to be an exhibition of acceleration citation costing a few hundred dollars can now carry heavy fines and jail time at best and the confiscation and destruction of the offender’s vehicle at worst in many jurisdictions. Considering that someone can very easily have $10,000 or more, plus the price of the actual vehicle, in a build, these more strict laws will hopefully have a rapid effect on this practice.

Contact An Indiana Car Accident Attorney

If you have been injured due to another’s negligence in a street racing incident or other car accident, contact the Indianapolis car accident legal team of Rowe & Hamilton Attorneys at Law today to learn about your options.

Kendra Shaw, 25, had an acute asthma attack on May 7, while in the Grant County Jail for probation violation and theft.

She was taken off life support and died May 8 at a Fort Wayne hospital.

Attorneys allege the jail corrections officers failed to call the ambulance in time to save Shaw’s life.

“I think it’s a tragic case,” said Tim Rowe, attorney for Frazier. “It could have so easily been prevented.”

Grant County Jail policy states that when an inmate is having an “emergency medical situation” such as “serious breathing difficulties,” officers should administer first aid immediately, and a command officer should call for an ambulance.

Records and video obtained by the Call 6 Investigators show Shaw told jail staff at 3:33 a.m. on May 7 that she was having an asthma attack and couldn’t breathe.

The lawsuit alleges jail staff did not immediately call for an ambulance or contact the hospital when Shaw complained she couldn’t breathe.

Instead, officers took Shaw into the “barber shop” room to receive a breathing treatment. Shaw never made it through the first breathing treatment.

Instead she urinated herself, foamed at the mouth and stopped breathing, records show.

“After she lost consciousness there still seemed to be a delay before the ambulance was even called,” Rowe said. “I think instead of trying to give her another breathing treatment they should’ve called the ambulance.”

The lawsuit alleges jail staff did not call the ambulance until 3:53 a.m., 20 minutes after Shaw told jail staff she was having an asthma attack and couldn’t breathe.

“She had a serious medical problem,” said Rich Waples, attorney for Frazier. “The Sheriff’s department knew about it but didn’t adequately protect her from the consequences of it.”

Attorneys for Bobbie Sue Frazier also take exception to the fact that no medical personnel from Correctional Healthcare Companies ever examined Shaw after she announced she was having an asthma attack, and “no one measured her oxygen saturation level.”

Two days earlier, a CHC nurse measured Shaw’s oxygen saturation levels at a “dangerously low 90-percent”, but the nurse released Shaw back into the jail’s general population without treatment or a plan for additional measurements of her oxygen saturation levels, the lawsuit read.

“Very simple medical treatment in this case, and this young woman would still be alive,” Rowe said. “She had asthma attacks in the past but when it got so bad, she went to the hospital and always recovered by the next day. It wasn’t anything so acute or so bad it couldn’t be remedied by simple medical care from the hospital.”

The lawsuit alleges one of the corrections officers had been on the job for several months and had not yet received training on the jail’s procedures on how to respond to medical emergencies.

“When a person suffering from asthma is having an attack and difficulty breathing, every second counts in getting them appropriate treatment,” read the lawsuit.

Rowe said Frazier is heartbroken over the loss of her daughter.

“I’m not sure this is something she will ever get over,” said Rowe. “She struggles with it every day.”

Rowe said Shaw’s family should be compensated, but Rowe said the case is about more than money.

“This can prevent another death from happening in Grant County,” said Rowe. “We want justice in this case, justice for Kendra and justice for her family. Unfortunately, we can’t bring her back.”

Kenney attempted to reach the Grant County Sheriff and attorney Kyle Persinger for comment and has not heard back.

Kenney also attempted to reach Correctional Healthcare Companies for a response and has not heard back.

It appears they are now operating under a new name, Correct Care Solutions.

A federal court search shows the provider is facing dozens of lawsuits throughout the country.

KJRH, RTV6’s sister station in Tulsa, reported last year Correctional Healthcare Companies is facing at least 20 different lawsuits alleging mistreatment and civil rights violations by the health care provider.

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